A Kunoichi's Begninng
by MeilinII
Summary: AU. Hinata's being shipped away from home to a place she's never been. She left her mom behind and chose a new name, identity, and life. What will happen when an American girl gets the culture shock of her family's history? Another Creative Writing assign


Meilin: Another creative writing story. I didn't like the ending, so I edited to be more like a chapter. I'll write more if I get even one review!

The Kunoichi's Beginning 

Hinata yawned. Outside the window of her plane, the sun was setting, and clouds that looked like flaming marshmallows soared over an ocean with no end in sight. The dark-haired girl hadn't seen land in over an hour, and seeing the same water for miles on end was becoming tedious. She hadn't wanted to be on this flight in the first place. 'Better off with my cousin…. Hah.' she thought, clenching her hand over the armrest. What had her cousins ever done for her? They certainly hadn't helped her father any when he needed it.

_"Mother, why am I leaving?" Hinata asked, standing beside the airport gate. _

_"I'm sorry, chibi. Your Father is gone... And I can't afford to stay here any longer. We'll be better off with my family in Tokyo." _

_"Then why aren't you coming with me?" _

_"I'll be there soon. I have to settle some things here first."_

Tokyo. Hah. May as well have been Mars for all Hinata could think of. What was there to do there? No English music, no Broadway, no Fifth Avenue Macy's…. Sure, there'd be nice video games, but all her friends were still all the way in New York City! Here there would be strange customs, odd foods, different-looking people… She didn't even speak Japanese for God's sakes!

_"Don't worry, Hinata-chan." Her cousin had said on the phone, voice smooth and comforting. "It's just fate that you're coming to stay with us. It's alright, I'm sure you'll enjoy learning our customs..."_

Again, HAH. If there was anything she knew about Japan from her classes, it was that the amount of social taboo's in Japan was a hundred times the amount back home. She had a feeling she'd be ostracized from the whole of Japan before she'd understand _that_ social structure.

"A refill on your drink, Miss?" asked the attendants, interrupting her musing.

Startled, Hinata sat bolt upright, then relaxed. "Sure. Sprite, please." The attendant handed her the drink, smiling. Hinata took it and set it down next to her half-eaten dinner. Tugging at her necklace absentmindedly, Hinata glanced at the attendant. "How much longer is it to Tokyo?"

"Thirty minutes, Miss. We'll begin descent in fifteen." The attendant said as she left.

'Half an hour then, until this 'new opportunity' of mine…' she thought. It was too bad she was the one moving to Tokyo. A few of her friends would've killed for that chance.

_"You're WHAT?" the blond-haired boy called out. _

_"Not fair, Hina!" the pink haired girl cried indignantly, "I wanna go to Tokyo!" _

_Hinata rolled her eyes. "I'll trade you right now. At least you know the language, Sarah." _

_"Hai!" she said, her pink hair falling over her face. She brushed it out of the way absentmindedly. "Why aren't you excited? This is the land of the gods! The land of video game creators! The land of **anime**!" _

_"The land of people who speak gibberish. The land of music that has no rhythm. The land of people who make no sense!" the dark-haired girl shot back. _

_"You're being pigheaded, squirt." The blond boy chided. _

_"Shut up Roxas!" She spat. "I'm going a million billion miles from home!"_

She glanced up as the plane landed, bouncing slightly on the runway. 'Here we go….' She thought, picking up her backpack. Walking off the plane, the attendants bowed to the passengers. Meilin sighed as she reached the end of the jetway. 'First step to insanity…. Party of one.'

"Hinata-chan!"

She turned. She recognized that voice from the phone. "Don't call me that, Neji."

"Call me Neji-kun. And what to call you then, cousin?"

The girl thought for a moment, and then grinned. "Meilin." She said, choosing a name from her friends' novel. "Hyuuga Meilin."

The taller boy smiled indulgently. "Alright. Hyuuga Meilin-chan it is." He said, running a hand through his long black hair.

She tugged at her jacket absentmindedly, shifting her backpack on her shoulder. Man, for meeting family, it was sure awkward! The black eyed boy smiled and pat her one the head. "C'mon midget. Let's go get your things."

Meilin glared at her cousin, a vein twitching on her face. "I'm. Not. Short." She growled at him.

Neji laughed. "Right. And I'm the Queen of England."

"Pleasure to meet you, your majesty." She said sarcastically, walking towards the baggage claim. "Just you wait; I'll be taller than you eventually.

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Meilin looked out the window of the blue Mitsubishi Eclipse™. Tokyo was almost as busy as home, though these tiny houses next to huge skyscrapers seemed out of place.

Neji glanced left at her from the driver seat. "Hey. You okay?"

Meilin glanced up. "Huh? Oh yeah. Why are there houses here?"

"Because there can be."

"Don't you people zone?"

"No."

"Weirdness." She said, almost plastering her face to the window to see the buildings.

Neji laughed as he turned a corner, the car reacting instantly to the movements of the wheel and stopping on a dime in the driveway. "We're here."

Meilin stepped out onto the lawn of what was to be her new home. "Woah!" she exclaimed. The house was large, surrounded by trees so tall that they made it difficult to see the city all around the home. The ceramic tiles on the roof were red and stuck out against the bamboo-colored walls of the building. A plaque rested above the doorway to the house. Meilin struggled to translate the unfamiliar symbols. She blinked. "Neji-kun, you live in a dojo?"

The older boy looked surprised. "Didn't you know? Our family has run this dojo since the early Heian Era."

Meilin tried to remember her social studies courses. The Heian Era had been the same time as the Middle Ages of Europe... "But... But that's almost twelve-hundred years!"

"That's right. twelve-hundred years of martial arts, spying, and assassination. That's the Hyuuga family's history. We are the descendants of a very prominent shinobi family."

"Shinobi... As in _ninja_!" The first thing that popped into Meilin's' head was her best friends' obsession with ninja anime. The next thing was that she was a total pushover, never doing all that well in sports or the occasional New York City street scuffle. She cursed herself for her weakness. Meilin glanced up at her cousin, her features changing from disbelief to laughter. "Good one, Neji-kun. Nice joke..." she said in one last desperate hope.

He grinned. "I'm afraid I'm not joking, Meilin-chan." He said as he picked up her bags. Jerking his head to gesture that she should go inside, he began to drag the heavy suitcases towards the entrance. Meilin grabbed the remaining bag and hesitantly approached the house. Pulling aside the sliding paper door, she glanced around the room. There were bamboo and wooden swords hanging from racks on the walls, and plaques and trophies were displayed at a shrine to one side of the room, on the sides of a scroll. In front of this small area, a set of swords were displayed. Though the blades were hidden, the hilts and sheaths were delicately engraved with images of dragons and demons. The paper doors were adorned with two paintings of ancient Kami, and the floors were made of wood polished to shine. Neji gestured her through the next door, and then the next, and placed her bags in a corner of the newly entered room. "This will be your room." He said, still smiling that unnerving grin.

She looked around. It was small, but not uncomfortable. The boxes she'd already sent over were stacked neatly on a shelf with blankets and a sleeping mat. It was bear now, but she'd deal with that soon enough. Neji pulled down the bedding and moved to the door. "Go ahead and sleep. You've had a long day. Tomorrow, we train."

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Meilin: How's that for a start? Review please!


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